


Turning of the Seasons

by Fourier



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Past Character Death, Past Sexual Abuse, Past Torture, Recovery, Sibling Bonding, Trauma, a more hopeful fic than the tags make it seem
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 09:22:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11552250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fourier/pseuds/Fourier
Summary: The de Rolo family fell five years ago. Two years ago, they started to rebuild. This year, the process continues. But healing isn't linear.-A modern AU, on Cass and Percy and healing.





	Turning of the Seasons

**Author's Note:**

> Relevant trigger warnings will be posted at the beginnings of the chapter, in addition to the overall warnings for the fic's plot. 
> 
> In This Chapter: references to scars, vague de Rolo trauma, rich kids

“You’re making good progress, Cassandra.”

Cass, with her mouth twisted into a grimace, her fingers smoothing the hem of her dress, tilts her chin upwards. “I would hate to see what poor progress looks like.”

Elisabeth hums low in her throat; Cass hates when she does that, as if she’s trying not to betray her true reaction to whatever Cass has just said. An unequal relationship, in her opinion—if Cass is required to give her honest feelings at every moment of these meetings, it should be only fair her therapist is required to do the same.

“You’ve put in a great deal of effort towards healing,” Elisabeth says. “I know it may feel slow, especially considering the volume and the gravity of what we’re working through together, here, but you really are doing some fantastic work.”

Cass shifts in her seat.

“Is our time up?” she asks, and her therapist gives her a knowing smile. Cass hates that look, too.

“Yes, Cassandra,” she says. “Have a safe trip.”

She nods as she leaves, her keys already slotted between her gloved fingers. They stay that way as she walks out of the office, through the ankle-deep snow of the parking lot, towards the black car with tinted windows and a de Rolo crest etched into the doors.

“Lady Cassandra,” her driver says as she sits down on the cold leather, as she lets her fists unclench and smooths out the crescent-marks left in her palm from the walk from one door to the next.

“Kynan,” she acknowledges. “Home, please.”

… 

The de Rolo Estate, including the grounds, the main family house, and the two on-property guest houses, was last estimated to be worth approximately twenty-five million dollars, US.

This, notably, brought the listing back up to the market price it hovered at in the days when the family previously owned the property. This, notably, was nearly entirely Cassandra’s doing.

She feels a pang in her chest every time she approaches the grounds, even now. As unnecessarily large and lavish as the house feels now, it is, after all, her _home._ The driveway nearly as long as a city block, the three-story mansion with floors twenty feet tall for no reason at all, the fucking marble statues posed about the perfectly kept wintery gardens; none of it is in any way necessary, but it is all undoubtedly _hers_.

(If she feels a twist in her gut, too, when she takes careful steps up the marbled and snow-covered stairs to her foyer, she does not acknowledge it.) 

“I’m here,” she calls when she steps through the door. She waits for a beat for no answer before she sighs, kicks off her shoes, and heads for her room.

…

Her Thursday afternoons proceed like that nearly every week. A therapy session, in which she’s assured that she is, indeed, doing about as well as she could be expected to do. A drive home in which she stares at the city outside her windows and tries not to think very hard about what lies out there. A return to a house where her brother _ostensibly_ lives, but where she never seems to see him, save a few days of the week when she watches him stumble, blinking with the daylight, from his workshop. She is used to it, by now. 

So on the last Thursday of the month, when she calls out _I’m here_ and is met with, “Oh, Cassandra!”, she nearly jumps out of her damned skin.

“Sorry,” her brother says as he rounds the corner, seeing the look on her face. “I’ve—my friends are over.”

She takes a tentative few steps into the main sitting room.

“Ah, yes,” she says. Back straight, hands folded at her lap. “These friends.”

They are charming, to say the least.

She’s seen them around here before; it’s often the only time she sees her brother, honestly. They’re a distinctive group. The massive one who looks like he could snap a tree in half, but speaks and acts like a gentle child. The tiny girl they all crowd around like firelight. The golden-haired one—he’s new—who seems more at home here in their house than Percival does, these days. The one who carries his fucking guitar everywhere he goes. The girl who wrings her hands and clings to Percival like a life raft. The twins, loud and unpredictable and always in awe of this house that Cassandra has only ever known as normal.

None of them seem anything like the people she or Percival knew before. She sort of adores them.

“It’s nice to see you all,” she says, with a curtsey.

“Bidet,” the giant one responds. She smirks.

“They’re staying a few days, if that’s alright,” Percy says. He gives her that look—the silent _we’ll talk about it later (even though we both know we won’t)_.

“Of course,” Cass shrugs.

“Told you it’d be alright,” one of the twins—the girl, is that Vex?—says. “Thank you, darling, all the same. Although, honestly, we might never even see you in a house like this.”

“There’s fourteen bedrooms,” Cass offers. “Eight in the east wing and six in the west. You can all have your pick.”

“Fourteen,” the other twin murmurs under his breath. “Jesus.”

“They’re staying for Christmas,” Percy continues. Cass blinks. Christmas. That’s right. That’s soon. “I thought it might be nice.”

“I look forward to it,” Cass nods. She turns to leave.

“Stay a little,” Scanlan calls out, and she pauses. “You can tell us embarrassing stories about your brother, like last time.”

Cass smiles, but she shakes her head. “That’s alright,” she says. “I’ll see you all around.”

As she leaves, she realizes her fingernails are digging into her palms again.

… 

“It’s just a few days.”

“It’s _fine_ , Percival.”

“Most of them don’t have anywhere else to go, anyway—”

“I told you, it’s fine. I meant it.”

“—and the ones that do don’t want to make the trip home for such a short time.”

“ _Percival_.”

“Yes.”

“It’s _fi_ _ne_.”

“I know, but I—. You know.”

“…Yes. I know.”

“…”

“Just a little warning, next time. That’s all.”

“Of course.”

… 

The kitchen is unused to guests.

The de Rolos alone, yes. Official functions with hundreds in attendance, yes. Catered meals, charity kitchen days, overindulgent galas for upper crust society and reporters alike—of course.

But just seven extra people—a gathering meant to be cozy, friendly, _familial_ —well. They end up with more food than they could ever hope to eat. It’s a spread that could feed nearly 30 people, and the kitchen staff seems unsure what to do with the fact that there are only nine. She tells them all to take their own plates, and while they do, it still seems futile to even try ot make a dent in the sheer amount of food they’ve created.

Percival’s friend Grog certainly gives it his best effort, though.

“This is _amazing_ ,” Keyleth gasps—she takes scoops of everything, of cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes and ham and turkey and sausages and vegetables and an endless array of cheese, Cass doesn’t even know why they _have_ that much cheese.

“It’s quite nice,” Percy admits. He’s still picking at a single piece of turkey breast. “I think the staff went a bit overboard.”

“We’ll donate most of it,” Cass shrugs. She takes another slice of pie. From the other end of the table, Percy nods in agreement.

“Quite the philanthropist,” Vax—and it’s definitely Vax, she asked—says.

Cassandra shrugs. “It’s just Percival and I, most days,” she says, looking pointedly at her plate. “We’d never finish it.”

…

She sees Percy more when his friends are over than when they’re not, by far. She sees him out back, teaching Keyleth to place tennis. She sees him in the theater room, watching a movie with the twins, pretending he doesn’t want to lean over on one or both of them. She sees him bargaining with Grog for his glasses back. She watches him and his friends whenever she can; watches the peculiar way in which they interact with each other.

And the way they act after Christmas dinner is no exception. The way they all seem to fall on top of one another. The way they’ll weave in and out of finishing one another’s sentences. The familiarity. The lack of boundaries. The ease with which it all occurs.

She retires early to her room.

… 

Before they leave, Vex catches her in the hallway.

“Cassandra,” she calls, and Cass turns in time to see her jogging up. Her suitcase is behind her; headed out the door, it seems, though Cass is sure she and her brother will be back soon enough.

“Vex’ahlia,” Cass responds, and nods her head.

“I wanted to thank you,” Vex says. “For letting us stay in your… _completely_ ridiculous house.”

“The pleasure was mine.”

Vex smiles.

Cass watches, with growing discomfort, as the smile fades.

“Percival….” Vex begins. She stops. Cass wonders if it’s too late to keep walking. “Percival told us the… the basics.” _Stop._ “Of what happened to your family.” _Stop. Stop. Stop_. “I just wanted you to know that if you ever need anything, then we’re here.”

The blood keeps pounding in Cass’s ears. Her throat, her mouth, fills with cotton.

“Thank you,” she says, in a crystal-clear voice, with a perfect tilt of her head. “That’s very kind of you. Safe travels.”

… 

 _Your family_.

Cass checks that the door is locked; again; again; again. The damned glass walls of the shower, of everything in this room—she needs to replace them, she knows. 

 _What happened to your family_.

She stares at herself in the bathroom mirror, already steaming up; at the wisps of white that curl through her hair, at the perpetual bags that rest under her eyes when she wipes the concealer from her face.

_What happened to your family?_

The coat drops to the floor. Her dress. Her slip. Her undergarments.

 _What happened, what happened_.

She stares at the mirror, and over her own shoulder, to the reflection of her reflection that plays in the glass, the view of the scars along her back.

_What happened?_

There are countless marks across her body. Dozens, hundreds, it doesn’t matter. Numerous on her back alone. But she stares at the three round, pockmarked scars dented into her flesh—in her shoulder, her rib, near her spine—and they seem to burn and stand out among the rest.

_What happened to you?_

She turns the water as hot as it will go.


End file.
